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World Cup Woes

Watching the World Cup has been an inspiring and nostalgic experience. The nostalgia stems from my love of soccer and my days of passing, scoring, sliding and of course being off-sides. Although I love the game and have enjoyed watching this 2010 World Cup, the world and I have been extremely frustrated by the terrible officiating. The World Cup is such a profound, global sporting event that largely important factors ride on every goal.

English midfielder Frank Lampard’s stunning shot careened off the woodwork and bounced inside the goal (proven without doubt by the replay flashing on the screen) and yet was called a “no goal” by the referee whose view of the bounce was blocked by the keeper. A goal then could have changed the outcome of the game for England. Instead, because of FIFA’s insolence, England was eliminated, millions of dollars were lost, a country was put to shame and fans and players alike are left wondering, what if? As for the Americans, our country was finally bonding together over soccer; games were being watched everywhere with record setting support not only watching on TV, but also present in South Africa. However, this world cup will forever be tainted by the botched calls from referees in multiple games. In order to solve the problem, FIFA has been confronted on the issue and they are refusing to accept the idea of allowing replay technology or goal line cameras to assist referees in their game calling. They have even gone as far as to block replays from being played on the big screen during games in order to hide any bad calls that are made and hence are closer to taking a step backward, then moving forward!

Thinking about the solutions available for FIFA has made me think a little bit about Softlayer. Since I have started here, I have soaked up all the knowledge I can about our services and the industry in general. Since then, I have noticed one key way to utilize our services to a firms advantage; specialization. FIFA refuses to outsource part of their officiating to more accurate instant replay technology void of any human error. My point is that much like FIFA, if you allow those with better resources, more knowledge and more power help you with one aspect of your operations, your infrastructure will be exponentially more impressive and better protected. Think of us as the goalie protecting your valuable systems, the Adidas F50 adiZeros giving you blazing connection speed and the scrappy midfielder who can handle any demand in bandwidth thrown his way. Without the help of technology, FIFA is basically running in 2nd gear and embarrassing themselves while making a big joke out of the most popular sport in the world. So if you’re stuck in 2nd gear, barely keeping up with traffic, allow Softlayer to handle your infrastructure and take you to your top speed.